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Formed in 2022 in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.A. by 7 music school nerds, DOOM GONG has made a name for themselves internationally with their own home-baked genre, Denim Psych – a hodgepodge of psychedelic rock, jazz fusion, bedroom pop, lo-fi, contemporary classical music, as well as blood, sweat, and a lot of denim.

Having only released their first two LP’s in 2023 (DOOM GONG and Dream Behemoth), DOOM GONG has quickly become a mainstay of the psych scene in the U.S. and abroad, performing their enigmatic and seamless live shows alongside the likes of Amyl and the Sniffers, The Black Angels, BADBADNOTGOOD, Allah Las, King Buffalo, Bass Drum of Death, Death Valley Girls, HOLY WAVE, Gustaf, Ron Gallo…In 2024, DOOM GONG launched their international presence, completing two summer tours consisting of 24 shows across the eastern United States and Canada with immense reception. Soon after, the denim assemblage partnered with Romanus Records to produce vinyl of their debut album – all presses were sold out within an hour of its release. [ed note: I have a copy, just haven’t featured it here yet]

Side A of Megagong is heavy on the dreamy: synth-drenched and swirly, see especially “The Perilous Rise.’ Side B is distinctively heavier: one of my favorites on Megagong is not all dreamy (though it has moments): the single “Annihilator” which was released before the LP and currently the only track with any kind of link (I’m guessing until tomorrow) is mostly hard hard heavy prog synth with glimpses of Motörhead and Sabbath.  As the title suggests “Spiral Dance of Imminent Doom” is another hard and heavy rocker (with proggy synths!) which is also supremely ass-shakey. Slightly less heavy and profoundly more frenetic is the excellent title track “Megagong.” Brilliant and otherworldly.

Doom Gong is currently on tour (not in the upper Midwest unfortunately, but I begged them to put Milwaukee on their circuit next time ’round) – this is one of those bands that you must see live to fully experience the intelligent insanity of their music.

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The band itself seems to view their record through a prog-rock lens that’s got 50ish years of blurry goo smeared on it, never cleaned from back in the era of the 70’s epic concept album. From an article on Nuvo, frontman Corey Standifer says of the plot of Lady of Many Faces (inspired by keyboardist Brooke Rice’s dream of a three-faced woman), “There’s the Wizard, who is unfortunately in his own prison. He’s pure, but he doesn’t know it yet. Same with the ‘Hidden Hermit of the Hills.’ He’s a total nomad of sorts, who lives by his own book. But the Lady [of Many Faces] needs him in order to fulfill this prophecy of good and spreading your true potential. The ‘Doom Tomb Giant,’ however, is wanting to take that away from them. The song ‘Phantom Erasion’ is essentially the concept of wiping away all the negative forces within your life and really trying to tackle that as best as you can. The Lady has many faces, so [that equates to] many characters and many concepts. But she represents really digging inside of your inner self and exploiting your selfless soul.”

Here’s the entire album, performed in order at their record release show in Indy in November 2024.

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Fire Breathing Dragon is a top as fuck grunge number with a massive Geordie like riff teaming up with Pantera for a nu metal party. It’s a seven and a half minute banger that rocks with the rolls and punches high on the solo meter. After two minutes it goes all weird psych again with some gloomy synth from Ewan Fitzgerald before a slow doom riff from Bonj (not Jovi) slowly rises with some clever drums from Sam Davies who sounds like he knows his way around his kit. Malt sounds like someones stubbed a cig out on his arse at this point and is cursing the burn. It sounds great. It’s a tune that dabbles with everything and a sound of four mad bastards having a laugh. The guitar attack in the outro is brutal as fuck. –Wayne Cary

“Colombo No. 5” is one of the shortest tracks on the LP, another ass-shaker, probably the most straightforward garage rock track: tight, bass and riff-heavy, no zoning out on this one. The closer “Frostbite” is alt-rap with a charming UK accent, as if to drive home the point that Wytch Pycknyck is allergic to being classified (and to using vowels).

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WMSE’s Local/Live shows are a mix of music and interview so the band got a chance to discuss the origins of Lords of Data. They initially wrote the album in the deep woods back in 2019 with the intention of releasing the record, as Calliope, in 2020. Well, we all know how that turned out. As the pandemic dragged on and on and they continued to write, they realized that the “60’s funhouse psychedelic” sound that the name Calliope implied no longer described the evolution of their music. Heavily (heavily) influenced by Dune (ie the tracks “Navigator,” “God Emperor“) and other works of sci-fi, they rebranded as Astral Hand and it fits their vibe completely. Melt-your-face hallucinogenic jams that swirl in the cosmos, both live and on wax, Lords of Data is a trip. My top track is “Universe Machine,” a thundering, beat-driven (courtesy of drummer Dan Dahl) mind-fuck’d ass-shaker that had me grooving at the show. “End of Man” is another killer head-banging rocker. Other great picks are “Contact” and the epic “Psychedelicide.” The Local/Live show is their last for awhile as the bassist’s wife just had a baby (or is about to??) but I’ll be looking forward to catching a complete set from Astral Hand soon.

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Cadets is Spirit Mother’s first LP and it doesn’t look like any of the band members have been in other groups, at least after an non-exhaustive glance on Discogs. They released a live record in 2021 that has several of the songs from Cadet called Live in the Mojave Desert Volume 3. That record is part of series on Giant Rock Records, all recorded live and filmed in the natural amphitheater of California’s Mojave Desert and backed by a visual performance from the Mad Alchemy Liquid Light Show. Other bands appearing on the series include Earthless, Nebula, Mountain Tamer and Stöner.

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Since we picked up Ride after the show, I’m not entirely sure which tracks they played but I’m guessing the bulk of their performance included tracks from this, their latest release and first LP (I think its their debut anyway: according to their Bandcamp page they also have 2 EP’s). My favorite songs from Ride (and probably from their show) are “X-Ray,” “Everything Stops” (both heavy bass and beat-driven fuzzed out rockers), the slinky grooves of both “Soft as Gold” and “Fantasma” plus the hard tripping title track “Ride.”

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The Pack A.D. at Back Room Colectivo

Positive Thinking is Maya Miller’s (drums) and Becky Black’s (guitar, vocals) sixth album and one of my favorites; it’s crashing, fuzzed out and catchy as hell. The best of the best is “Yes, I Know,” a track I never tire of and that they played last night right before their encore (Maya with some exaggerated winking: “This is our last song!” – it wasn’t! They came back out for a couple more!). One of the best garage punk songs ever: angry AND danceable! I also love the album opener “So What,” the touch-of-evil “Medium,” the all-out insane rocker “Los Angeles,” the psychedelic edges of both “Gold Eyes” and “Fair Enough,” and Is It So” which is a wall of furious swirling sound.

Becky Black

Maya Miller

The Pack A.D. put on a fantastic show, their second concert of their current tour, and I was thrilled that the turnout last night was so good. The last time they were in Milwaukee, in 2018 at Company Brewing with Brother O’Brother, almost no one was there and I was embarrassed by our city’s poor showing. We had tickets to see them in the spring of 2020 for their It Was Fun While It Lasted release, but we all know what happened to that. So thankful that they’ve finally been able to get back on the road.

I shared this video with practically everyone I ran into this past week to get them to come to last night’s show and I guess it worked!

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